I finally figured this out. I had seen plenty of examples, but couldn't ever get them to work.
Most of the examples out there don't point out that for something like:
UInt32 propertySize, audioIsAlreadyPlaying;
propertySize = sizeof(UInt32);
AudioSessionGetProperty(kAudioSessionProperty_OtherAudioIsPlaying, &propertySize, &audioIsAlreadyPlaying);
to work, the proper framework to add to you app is AudioToolbox. I kept trying to add other audio frameworks and always missed that one.
Once you add that frame work (and import it into the code file in question) just test to see if audioIsAlreadyPlaying is zero or one.